Na Po Wri Mo – April 1 2023

This is my response to https://www.napowrimo.net/poets-start-your-engines/ and my first time taking part in National Poetry Writing Month, an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April. I feel inspired but acknowledge it’s a target I may not achieve. I can but try.

How to Write Poetry

I will keep on wondering 

about the broken things

that make me cry.  

About deep green 

oceans, swollen waves 

and pear drop tears.

I will keep on listening

to the yawning silence within 

where a steady, single flame 

burns with desire 

to be known, to belong

and to be heard. 

I will keep on letting go

of all that is out there, 

and focus on inner sensations 

pulsing, prickling, pumping,

informing me I am alive

and have something to say.

I will keep on watching clouds 

billowing, leaves fluttering, 

sunrises, the moon, setting suns.

Hope for fox cubs scampering,

damselflies resting, a badger

and recognise I too am nature.

I will keep on remembering

presence, moments of beauty,

here and now despite being 

burdened with a flickering mind.  

To write poetry is to find joy

and to discover why I am here.